Review: The Embattled Road by JM Madden

Reviewed by Shelly

This is the prequel to JM Madden’s Lost and Found series about a veterans. This novella isn’t a romance. Heck, the only women to make appearance are the nurses from the VA. It’s a resolute start to the series and Madden doesn’t spare us any battle scenes. It’s all horrific – the death, carnage and subsequent days of rehab. The slow ticking of the clock as these soldiers live their lives waiting for the best and worst. The best being their discharge and the worst being their discharge.

We get a glimpse into the thoughts and into the lives of Marine First Sergeant Duncan Wilde, Sergeant Chad Lowell and Gunnery Sergeant John Palmer. All three have been to war and served multiple tours in Iraq, and they’ll all been wounded.

Each of these solders is mad about their circumstance, but it’s all for difference reasons, and that’s what so interesting. Because even though they each have their conscience to answer to, they’re still brothers because of where they’ve been, what they’ve seen, and what they’ve done. I cried, I really did, because some of the thoughts were so dark, it’s hard to fathom that level of tragedy –not just for the soldiers who lived but for the ones who died. Guilt is a very powerful emotion and Madden did a phenomenal job of putting me inside the head of each of these guys and letting me feel their pain and their victories. Who knew having the hairs on your legs pulled out one by one can be such a wonderful experience. Read it, you’ll know what I mean.

After their discharge, Duncan decides that he doesn’t want to work for anyone other than himself anymore, and it’s with this mindset that he proposes to Chad and John that they start a detective agency. I’m off to read the first John’s’ story, which is a romance. Yay!